Latest Francis George Quotes from Interviews

• The question about who God is is a very public question. We don't have the tools in this kind of political atmosphere to handle that, and maybe politics isn't the best place to answer that. It is a public issue.

  Francis George

  Issues, Political, Atmosphere

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• We [Americans] have secularized the public life of our country in such a way to say something is religious is something negative. Religion has now turned into a way to discredit people. It is futile and dishonest to argue about religion. Religion is a phenomenological umbrella; there are all kinds of religions. It makes a difference when your religion is telling you something true or something false.

  Francis George

  Country, Religious, Differences

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• Interest in religion is not necessarily interest in God. Religion in public life means a set of ideas, an ideology that has certain positions. Religion is then one more ideology among others. Religion is about God. Religion begins with a relationship to God, not a relationship to an idea. It is God who is an actor, not just individuals who have certain beliefs who are actors. God is an actor.

  Francis George

  Mean, Ideas, Actors

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• In our country [US] equality means your liberal and freedom means you're conservative. That tension is there and it can't be handled on its own terms. It can't be handled as you go out of that and go back into natural institutions or natural law or divine revelation. Something outside of the system has to tell you the system has gone wrong.

  Francis George

  Country, Mean, Law

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• Equality, therefore, becomes the criterion because we can handle all that in process, but we can't handle that as principle without infringing on freedom.

  Francis George

  Principles, Criteria, Process

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• Law is a process. If there is equality of process for everybody, then that's our definition of justice. Whether or not what is done is right or wrong, you follow the process. And so, the end result is just by definition within that alternative universe that is American law. Most people still operate within a moral universe where principles of good and bad and what is right and wrong in itself, and not just as a result of the process.

  Francis George

  Law, Justice, People

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• The presumption that the law can tell us what natural institution is supposed to be is a formula for totalitarianism. There's not equality in a family; there never is. And yet for that reason, the family is condemned as patriarchal. The goal of this sort of legislation is about the destruction of the traditional family, not just marriage.

  Francis George

  Law, Goal, Reason

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• The Church is our Mother, which means it is an internal voice. It is not a set of external rules. That's what isn't understood about Catholicism in this Protestant culture. It means that your conscience is formed by the Church, but in the end you're responsible for your own activities.

  Francis George

  Mother, Mean, Voice

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• If you're going to say you're Catholic, you inform your conscience so that you're activities will conform to what God is telling us through the Church. If God is telling you something outside of that, well, the Church will look at that and say: we think it is true or we don't think it is true. The Church might say: that might be true for you but it has no public normative value.

  Francis George

  Thinking, Catholic, Church

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• Christ didn't leave us a book of instructions; He left us a body, a family - a Church. If it were perfectly clear, there wouldn't be any freedom.

  Francis George

  Book, Church, Body

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• Religion doesn't start with a set of laws or rules and it doesn't start with a set of ideas. It starts with an encounter, with the living God and in our case, Christ risen from the dead. In that encounter you meet someone you can trust. That's faith: trust in truth.

  Francis George

  Law, Ideas, Encounters

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• The trust is a matter of love and faith is a matter of truth. The two together give you the guidance that you look for.

  Francis George

  Two, Giving, Together

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• There is the enormous corpus of Islamic law that is very rich. However, law is one rational exercise of reason. Philosophy is very different. Philosophy wants to try to understand everything. It is a better dialogue partner with faith than law.

  Francis George

  Philosophy, Islamic, Exercise

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• If you, however, separate reason and faith so that it's purely a rationalistic scheme, it will end in violence. If a pure faith scheme - sometimes called the fundamentalist scheme in modern parlance - you'll end in violence too.

  Francis George

  Violence, Sometimes, Reason

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• Every faith uses some kind of tool to understand itself better. Faith seeks understanding. The Western tradition has used philosophy to understand the truths of the faith and you come up with theology. Where as, Islam at a certain point said: we'll use law. There are these four major, developed schools of Islamic jurisprudence.

  Francis George

  Philosophy, Islamic, School

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• From a Christian perspective, the answer to all of that is not power, as it is in the modern perspective. It's love. It's self-sacrifice. That's what love is all about. The marriage ceremony says it very well: sacrifice is difficult, but love can make it a joy.

  Francis George

  Christian, Sacrifice, Love Is

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• Love isn't blind. Love is reasonable. God is pure love, but He is also pure reason. If you separate reason from faith you'll end in violence. Either way, if you have a purely rationalistic scheme that is atheistic, for instance Communism was for social justice. Fascism was for the nation-state, which isn't automatically a bad thing.

  Francis George

  Love Is, Justice, Way

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• That question in marriage is mutual submission, really - the next verse goes on: "husbands love your wife as Christ loves the Church."

  Francis George

  Husband, Love You, Wife

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• So, in every case if you really love someone there is an element of submission to them because you want what's best for them, and at times they're going to tell you what's best for them. Even if you have second thoughts about it, you'll probably still do it because you love them.

  Francis George

  Elements, Want, Submission

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• God always wants what's best for us, just as you want what's best for someone you really love. You put them before you, and God does that too. God puts us before His Son, who He sacrificed for our salvation. But the Son did it voluntarily because He has the love of the Father before us.

  Francis George

  Father, Love You, Son

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• God's is the causality at the level of our being, and therefore the roots of our freedom. Ours in causality is determinative of what kind of being we're going to be through our free choices, what kind of action we are going to do through our decisions.

  Francis George

  Roots, Choices, Decision

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• He [God] made us free, and He respects that. It is two different spheres of causality. Interdependent, though. It is not two boxes looking at one another without any kind of direct connections. There are very direct connections. That's why the question of "how are we free if God is omnipotent?" is a real, constant question. Ultimately, God is all powerful, and yet we are free.

  Francis George

  Powerful, Real, Two

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

• The fact that God knows everything does not mean that He is directly causing everything. He respects our freedom at our level. He makes it possible for us to act freely. If He didn't, we wouldn't act at all - we wouldn't be at all.

  Francis George

  Mean, Doe, Levels

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

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